Customer Reviews
Magnificent - By: Mr. Derek R. Osbourne, 03 Nov 2007 
I had never seen this film before although I have always been fond of James Mason. But this is a magnificent film to add to my classic film collection. Mason's performance, especiallly the scene in the artist's studio, is superb & the ensemble cast is especiallly good. How did Robert Newton manage to play a drunk whilst not being his usual drunken self?
And the lighting....the crisp black & white imagery beautifully directed by Carol Reed contributed to the sense of hopelessness & impending doom.
I suppose it was set in Belfast & I'm pleased they played southern Irish accents rather than heavy Belfast - not good for authenticity perhaps but easier on the ear for a non Irish audience.
My Best Film - By: Philip Tierney, 22 Jul 2007 I first saw Odd Man Out in the cinema in 1947. The story has been well covered by other reviewers although the IRA is never mentioned, always the Organisation At the time the film was made the IRA was dormant;some believed that the gun was gone from Irish politics. So it was felt safe to make a film of F.L.Green's book. There are memorable scenes in the film but the best is the scene in the Crown snug. Johnny knocks over a glass of "Guinness" & faces form his pain appear in teh bubbles; unforgetable
A sad, great film by Carol Reed - By: C. O. DeRiemer, 12 Jun 2007 This is a powerful, tragic movie which is hard to forget. It tells the story of Johnny McQueen (James Mason), an IRA chief in Northern Ireland. He was sentenced to 17 years for robbery but broke out & now has planned to rob a mill to steal money for the cause. He leads three other men & things go wrong. He shoots & kills a clerk & is shot himself. During the chaotic escape he fallls from the getaway car & is left on the street. He's seriously injured & probably is bleeding to death. All that evening & night, increasingly dazed & weak, he struggles to find someplace to go & rest. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed.
Odd Man Out is reallly two stories. One is McQueen's. The other is that of Kathleen Sullivan (Kathleen Ryan), the young woman who loves him & is determined to find & save him. She knows he's terribly hurt & that he'll be hanged if he is caught. She won't let that happen. Despite her Catholic faith & the sympathetic counsel of her elderly priest, she'll shoot Johnny & then herself if she must.
Those Johnny McQueen encounters during the cold & sleeting night may want to help him or may want the reward for his capture, but none want to give him shelter. A prosperous, fat madam welcomes Johnny's team & learns where they left Johnny. Then she turns them in & listens as they're shot down in front of her establishment. Two sisters find Johnny lying in the road & take him into their house. They bandage him but cannot keep him, & send him out again into the rain. A crazed painter (Robert Newton) finds him in a bar & takes him to his studio, where he wants to paint the dying face. All the while the police are slowly narrowing their search. At last Kathleen finds him. He is so dazed he can only know that he is with her now & is safe. As they stand against an iron fence, police with flashlights move toward them. Kathleen has a gun, but she finds she cannot use it to take Johnny's life & then her own. So she does what she must. She fires two shots, knowing the police will shoot down both of them.
So is this film Carol Reed's attempt to tell a story of redemption or the power of love or the fragile strands humans rely upon? Who knows. I'm not comfortable analyzing a film like Odd Man Out. All I know is that it is bleak, sad & great.
It was shortly after this film and, a year earlier, The Seventh Veil, that Mason left Britain for Hollywood. He always seemed to me to be one of the best film actors to come along. At the end of his life, in his last role in a movie, he starred at 76 in The Shooting Party. Mason was just as subtle & magnetic an actor then as he was in Odd Man Out.
Belfast....not Dublin - By: F. Pizzey, 31 May 2007 Just to correct an error here by another reviewer...this great tale - it's a very good book also - is set in Belfast. Whilst much was recreated in the studio, there is a fair bit of location filming in the city, & this does much to add to the mood of what is one of the great post war British films. A classic.
Withstands the Test of Time! - By: F. S. L'hoir, 10 Jan 2007 Recallling my fondness for James Mason as an actor, I recently bought a DVD of "The Desert Fox." Although Mason is as usual excellent in the title role, the film itself seems so dreadfully dated! I then realized that my continued regard for Mason as an actor actuallly stems from his performance as Johnny McQueen, in Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out," which I first saw as a child (Mason's luminous interpretation of the dying McQueen has cast a glow on my memory of alll his performances, including a hypothetical reading of the telephone book!). I can never forget the scene in the artist's garret when, in a moment of recognition, McQueen speaks "with the tongues of men & of angels."
"Odd Man Out" does not disappoint, even after sixty years. It still brings fresh tears to my eyes. How can the film miss with the nuanced direction of Carol Reed, the haunting music of William Alwyn, & the splendid cinematography of Robert Krasker--to say nothing of the actors? Every character--from the urchins on the street to the anonymous passers-by--some who help; others who hinder--is perfect. Kathleen Ryan gives a beautifully understated performance as the woman who will die for McQueen, & Robert Newton is brilliant in the role of Lukey, an artist, whom starvation has driven beyond the point of madness. The actors, who play Lukey's companions-in-misery--Shell, a down-and-outer looking for rewards, & Tober, a ruined medical student, whose Eton accent speaks of better times--are splendid.
As for Mason, "Odd Man Out" brought him fame as well as the attention of Hollywood, & a subsequent series of mediocre--albeit entertaining--potboilers, in which his gifted performances simply do not compare to his timeless interpretation of the Irish militant, Johnny McQueen. Jamie, we hardly knew you!
